Of Weapon Triangles and Axereavers
by MikoGalatea
Summary: FE7 ficlet written as a response to a challenge made on LJ. Farina keeps Hector up at night with her fussing over her choice of weaponry, and before long they find themselves debating the weapon triangle.


This was originally written as a response to a request made on the "Fic on Demand" community on LiveJournal; more specifically, the request was for a fic where Hector and Farina debate the weapon triangle. For more information on the community (and if you want to request a particular kind of fic yourself!) please visit. Just search for "fic on demand" and use underscores in place of the spaces.

So yeah; this was written for a particular person, but I'm happy enough with how it turned out that I'm posting it on here too. There's small pairing hints if you want to see them, but otherwise it's not enough to push it out of gen territory. Now on with the fic!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Fire Emblem or its characters, and I don't make any money out of this fanwork either.

"**Of Weapon Triangles and Axereavers"**

"Let's see... should I bring this Axereaver to the next battle, or stick with the usual slim lances? Or should I start practising using swords? I gotta be able to fend off those axe guys somehow..."

In the half-hour since Farina had returned to camp from her trip to the nearest armoury, all Hector had been hearing from her tent – which she had pitched up just next to his – was her musing over which weapons she should take with her in preparation for the group's next battle. Lances this, swords that, axes everything else... it had started to annoy him before long; why would anyone be so picky over what particular type of weapon they used? Did it matter in the long run, so long as the enemy was defeated and the wielder wasn't?

In any case, he needed to shut her up. Since the group had spent the entire day travelling, he was tired from walking, and he was never going to get any shut-eye this evening if a certain money-grubbing mercenary didn't shut her mouth. And so with these thoughts in mind he left his own tent and treaded over to Farina's, standing outside the entrance flap with his arms crossed. The girl's silhouette perked up as she became aware of his presence outside, and she moved over and peeked her head out in order to see what he wanted.

"I've been listening to you babbling to yourself for a little while now," Hector told her bluntly, looking her in the eye with a frown, "and it's been keeping me up. Haven't you settled on a weapon already?"

Farina stared at him for a moment. It seemed like she was intimidated by the disapproving look, and in truth she _had_ expected she was in trouble for something; but in actual fact, she was merely wondering why her personal choice of equipment would matter to him, apart from the obvious fact that her fussing over weapons had annoyed him.

Her reply came after a few seconds. "Not yet... I would've just gone with lances, but we've been facing more axe wielders lately, so I was thinking if it would be better to bring this." As she mentioned 'this', she gestured towards the Axereaver near the back of her tent.

Hector raised an eyebrow at her. "Why can't you just use your normal lances?" he asked. "I would've thought they'd be fine for poking at weak spots, being long and thin and all."

"It doesn't work out like that," Farina disagreed. "Lances have a huge disadvantage against axes, y'know. It's part of the weapon triangle. You must've noticed you have an easier time beating enemies with lances than ones with swords, right? That's part of it too."

The eyebrow that had been raised before was now one or two millimetres higher. "Weapon triangle?" The eyebrow relaxed again, partly because he knew what that was anyway, partly because having raised eyebrows would give him a headache before long, which he did not need when he was already tired. "I've heard of that before, but I don't see what's the big deal over it. Besides, I've beaten guys with swords before."

Farina discreetly rolled her eyes. "I didn't say it's _impossible_ for you to beat a swordsman. Heck, I know someone of your skill could take on all sorts of bad guys, _but_, it's the general rule that axes are weak against swords, just as swords are weak against lances and lances are weak against axes. That's just how the weapon triangle works out."

"I _know_ all that," Hector said, feeling a bit patronised, "but you just said that I can take on anything with my skill. If that's the case, then the weapon triangle shouldn't matter, right?"

The pegasus knight stifled a giggle at the way Hector had interpreted her words to mean he could take on _anything_; his confidence was pretty endearing to her, and just made it all the more fun to argue with him. "It _does_ matter! Lots of people rely on the triangle to win! It's all very well having skill, but it takes time getting to that level, and before then the triangle's the way to go."

_Damn, she'll be forcing the blasted triangle down my throat at this rate,_ Hector thought to himself. "Fine, fine," he then spoke, "but I still don't see what good it'll do for me. And what about you, huh? You're not a shabby fighter yourself, so why do _you_ still worry about it?"

Farina was a little surprised that the axe fighter had turned the debate towards her now; even so, she wasn't going to back down. "I prefer to be careful," she reasoned. "Underestimating the enemy, and overestimating your own ability, is what costs a lot of people their lives in battle. I would know this, being a mercenary... There's also the fact that we pegasus knights are primarily trained to use lances since their length makes them the easiest weapons to use while mounted. This obviously makes axe wielders tricky opponents for us – their weapons can easily overpower our lances and cripple our steeds. We _can_ train ourselves to use swords, but that's mostly left to the most skilled pegasus knights because of their shorter reach." She paused for a second, as if to catch her breath from talking at length. "At the end of the day, warriors in my class are more reliant on the triangle because we're more limited in the weapons we can use. I hope you understand that now."

She finally looked up again, and was annoyed to find that Hector looked almost as though he was dozing off. "Were you listening to a word I was saying!" she snapped at him.

The larger warrior rubbed his eyes sleepily. "Yeah, sorry about that," he apologised. "I did say I was tired, y'know." He looked towards the back of Farina's tent once more. "But what about that other thing you mentioned... 'Axereaver', or whatever it was? What's with that?"

"Oh, that?" Farina glanced back at it as well. "That's a special lance with the offensive properties of a sword. It basically reverses the weapon triangle, but there's a few problems..."

"Like what?" Hector questioned. "And keep it short this time, 'cause I want to go to bed soon."

Farina got straight to the point. "It's heavy, it's fragile, and it's bloody expensive. I don't want to end up breaking a new weapon after spending five thousand gold pieces on it!"

Hector shook his head and started to leave. "How did I know it would come back to the money..." he muttered to himself as he walked back to his own tent.

Farina watched him for a moment before retreating back inside. Perhaps buying that Axereaver had been a bad idea after all... that was the last time she bought anything before checking things like weight and durability. She was definitely going to start practising with those swords tomorrow morning.

-

Feedback is welcome and appreciated.


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